Our mission is to conduct innovative population and clinical research studies and produce the evidence for initiatives that promote prevention, lead to early detection and better management of disease, and improve quality of life, well-being and mental health. Observatory research also investigates the interaction of health services with patients to identify opportunities that lead to more effective health care and management, and that will maximise health outcomes. We have research opportunities available to anyone interested in clinical, epidemiological or population research, as well as health services research, health economics or mathematical modelling.

Postgraduate Student Projects

We are always looking for exceptional students to undertake research towards Honours or PhD degrees in any of our projects. We welcome interest from students in medicine, nursing or allied health professions or from doctors-in-training who need to complete research projects as part of their qualifications. Many former students have undertaken research projects that have culminated in presentations at national and international meetings and resulted in peer-reviewed journals publications.

Additional Current Postgraduate Students

Recent Student Alumni

PhD completions

Graham Tucker 2017: Statistical and methodological aspects of assessment of health-related quality of life.

Natalie Cutri: Clinical Studies of Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome in the Absence of Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease. Natalie is currently a Clinical Research Associate with CPR Pharma Services.

Mark Dodd: Economic aspects of the health impact of obesity. Mark is currently a Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Adelaide

Solomon Yu: Cytokines, Adiposity and Sarcopenia in the elderly. Solomon is currently a Consultant Physician, Aged & Extended Care Services at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Sarah Appleton: Epidemiological investigation of the role of phenotype in the association of obesity and asthma. Sarah is current a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow within The Health Observatory / Freemason’s Centre for Men’s health, and is based at the Basil Hetzel Institute, TQEH and SAHMRI, Adelaide.

Honours completions

Joule Li: Grip strength and incident diabetes

Sam Biermann: Health literacy and stroke risk factors and behaviour. Sam is currently undertaking further study.

Simone Orlowski: Social connectedness, personality, and presentation at ED: Establishing the validity of the Social Connectedness Questionnaire. Simone is currently undertaking a PhD at Flinders University.

Justyna Pollock: Diet, sleep and depression interactions

Emma Dunstan: Epidemiological and genetic investigation of Giant Cell Arteritis in South Australia

Sleep Health

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common, and likely to exert a negative effect on a number of areas including cardiac, metabolic, renal, cognition and mood. As other risk factors (such as smoking and hypertension) reduce in significance due to public health campaigns or medications, OSA will increase in importance as a general risk factor for adverse outcomes and multi-morbidity.

We have completed overnight sleep studies on 837 community-dwelling men in the MAILES Study in 2010-11, and are following their progress. This is the first longitudinal population based study in Australia since the advent of more sensitive sleep study methods and one of very few worldwide to examine health outcomes associated with OSA.

Current projects from this data include investigation of:

the independent effects of OSA over the follow up period on a composite of clinical health outcomes; quality of life, and health and societal costs, including accidents and work force participation. The aim is to determine a threshold of OSA severity at which overall health becomes compromised and health care and societal costs rise.

new markers of OSA on sleep studies (power spectral analysis, heart rate variability) can be used to improve the precision for identifying those at risk of adverse consequences

The North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS) is a representative biomedical population cohort study of approximately 4000 adults aged 18 years and over recruited from the northern and western regions of Adelaide, that commenced in 2000, with multiple follow-up stages since then.

Detailed demographic, biomedical, psychosocial, economic, occupational and geospatial information have been collected as well as data linkages to national and state administrative, health and pharmacy databases. Over 150 publications have resulted from use of NWAHS data.

There are opportunities to undertake analysis of musculoskeletal data from the North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS). This established cohort study of 4000 individuals has collected musculoskeletal data on three occasions.

Compared to existing Australian cohort studies, this detailed data on location and duration of musculoskeletal pain is unique to the NWAHS. Possible projects include the interaction between exercise, lifestyle factors, health literacy and other biomedical markers with the presence of risk factors for musculoskeletal disease.

There is also the opportunity to access the South Australian Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) Registry. This project collects data on the incidence, clinical features and risk factors for GCA in SA. It is a statewide initiative and the first GCA registry in Australia. GCA is the commonest form of vasculitis in the elderly and untreated can result in blindness and stroke. This project aims to provide new insights into clinical features, genetic and risk factors with the aim of finding new therapeutic interventions.

This Collaboration came into existence during the first half of 2014. It brings together many clinicians and modellers who have worked across Australia over the last 10-20 years. Cumberland.au recognises the importance and potential to apply the following to achieve reform in health: Systems thinking; Design thinking; Mathematical modelling (including the use of simulation), and Operations research.

Simulation modeling is a means of communicating and discussing the proposed changes with stakeholder groups. Simulation modeling provides the ability to reduce some risks through the pre-testing of proposed changes prior to committing to the idea and undertaking implementation (indeed, potentially more ideas could be tested and discarded). Cumberland.au has a formal relationship with the UK Cumberland Initiative. The Collaboration also works with other centres across the world and recently hosted a one-week workshop that enabled the Canadian-based renowned health care modeller, Associate Professor Nathaniel Osgood, to provide training to Australians.

Current projects funded through the Premier’s International Research Fund include:

These last two 2 publications outline the global burden of disease from 1990-2010, for which Dr Catherine Hill contributed expertise on musculoskeletal disease. They have already been extensively cited with over 1500 and 100 citations respectively. These studies have demonstrated that global disease burden has continued to shift away from communicable to non-communicable diseases and from premature death to years lived with disability.